Blind spelling bee contender competes with the best

A blind 11-year-old girl from Oklahoma is among the finalists at the Memorial Day “spelling Olympics” in Washington, D.C. Richelle Zampella is a Grade 5 student at the Oklahoma School for the Blind. She’s been reading, and spelling in braille since she was five.

She won her spot at the Scripps National Spelling Bee by beating 110 competitors over 16 rounds. The word that clinched it: “stolen”.

Richelle says she doesn’t consider her blindness an obstacle, but it does mean she has to work a bit harder than other spellers. One of her teachers told a local radio station that a page of text that might take a sighted person one-minute to absorb “would probably take her about five to 10 minutes.”

But in championship spelling that’s not a problem. Victory depends on accuracy, not speed.